Ultralight Board II – SUP Foil Bumblebee

[Vancouver_foiler]

Yes!  Beasho was using Gorilla Glue to laminate fibers.

The dream was that Gorilla glue would be more accessible, and faster given its 1 part nature.  AKA no more mixing epoxy for perfect cure . . . .

My first board I used Gorilla Glue to laminate the majority of the nose and tail.  On this board I used it on the tail.

The good news is that it worked.  The downside was that it tends to set up too quickly, making it a bit hard to work with large patches of fiber lamination.

The other benefit is with Ding Repair.  You can just slop on some gorilla glue, cover with Tape and go surf 1 hour later.  No worry about making it water proof because the whole board is porous anyways.

Can someone throw up some picks or a video on doing a GG lamination please? the GG I'm thinking of is the brown, expandable glue but maybe that's not it?
it's keeping me up at night-someone please sort me out!

[Beasho]

I apologize for the delayed response:  Yes!  It is the Brown, standard Gorilla glue.

I don't have video of the lamination process but here is what I did:

1) Sand the XPS smooth.  Use 220 grit or finer, not 80 grit, it causes the surface to be TOO corrugated and absorb too much glue

2) Wet out the XPS Surface with the glue.  IF the XPS is smooth enough you can dribble the Gorilla glue on the surface.  Then use a Credit Card, or Plastic Hotel key to squeegee the Gorilla glue all over the surface.  Make it fairly thin.  Not too much excessive goop.  The Gorilla glue will squeegee very thinly.  Scrape off any excess into a dixie cup

3) Lay the DRY fiber on top of the wetted area.  It will be pretty tacky so make sure to get the alignment correct.  The Gorilla glue sets up pretty quickly, as in <30 minutes so you have to move fast, but I was only applying smaller patches.  Smooth out the fiber with the squeegee or credit card.  Eyeball it to make sure the fiber is getting wetted out.  Add Gorilla glue as necessary. 

4) Once it appears fully wetted out apply the peel ply.  Treat the lamination as you would epoxy.  You may try spraying gentle spritzes of water, but I might recommend waiting until after you put on the peel ply.

5) Add perforated release, and breather layer and Vacuum

What I found with the Vacuum was that the the vacuum at 20 inHg will NOT permit the gorilla glue to bubble up or expand.  I was hoping that it would reduce the density of the Gorilla glue which has a specific gravity of 1.1 exactly the same density as Epoxy.   The only places you will find the Gorilla glue bubbling up is where you might have had creases in the Fiber layer, or the peel ply/breather layer.

Otherwise the Gorilla glue will set up almost the same way as the Epoxy.  I did also find a weird result after vacuum bagging for 8 hours.  The Gorilla glue came out a bit tacky.  This was likely because the Gorilla glue needs moisture to cure.  In a vacuum with ZERO moisture the Gorilla glue acts like it was put back into the bottle. 

Here is a view of the bottom of my Sailfish showing where the laminations were Epoxy vs. Gorilla Glue.  I was wary that the Gorilla glue MIGHT not be the best in compression so I used epoxy in areas that I was more concerned about compression, or sheer.  As in the sidewall on TOP nose patch. 

[Beasho]

The Gorilla glue sections eventually yellow.  That top shot was after primary cure.

Here are some shots that show the difference between the Epoxy and Gorilla glue laminations.  The XPS foam was uniformly Grey.  The yellowed areas were laminated with Gorilla glue. 

Whereas the sidewall 3.7oz S-Glass was Epoxy as was the top of the nose with 1.4 oz Fiberglass and Epoxy.

[eastbound]

misty morning stranger -- dave mason

youre missed at the mist

[Vancouver_foiler]

 You gotta do a video on thos GG process(please)
I just dont see how foaming girilla glue can do the job or epoxy

The Gorilla glue sections eventually yellow.  That top shot was after primary cure.

Here are some shots that show the difference between the Epoxy and Gorilla glue laminations.  The XPS foam was uniformly Grey.  The yellowed areas were laminated with Gorilla glue. 

Whereas the sidewall 3.7oz S-Glass was Epoxy as was the top of the nose with 1.4 oz Fiberglass and Epoxy.

[ninja tuna]

Need to do a video building the whole board.  I think there are a few people that would enjoy it and want to take  a crack at building something that keep thinking about but is not being produced.

[sflinux]

Need to do a video building the whole board.  I think there are a few people that would enjoy it and want to take  a crack at building something that keep thinking about but is not being produced.

That would be legendary.
I watched the entirety of "How to Build a Hydrofoil: Overview, Planning and Design (Video 1/15)" from start to finish:
https://youtu.be/af-iiFLuzis?si=QDDcmLQW2jRxKfUK

[blackeye]

4) ... apply the peel ply. 

5) Add perforated release, and breather layer and Vacuum

I've never understood the purpose of the perforated release layer. I've had success skipping it whereas the breather layer is vital. Is it so you can try using the peel ply again?

[Beasho]

I've never understood the purpose of the perforated release layer. I've had success skipping it whereas the breather layer is vital. Is it so you can try using the peel ply again?

The perforated release sits ABOVE the peel ply and below the breather layer.

1 huge benefit of perforated release is that you can REUSE THE BREATHER layer.  With the perforated release the breather just gets little dots of epoxy in the material, but it separates from the board and doesn't stick or tear away. 

If you put breather directly on peel ply the resin bleeds through the peel ply and fully sticks to the breather meaning you have to tear it all away.  Otherwise you can keep reusing the breather several times before things get to FUNKY. 

[blackeye]

I'll have to give it a go. Still not convinced. Someday I will do test panels.

Theoretically, the amount of excess epoxy bleeding into the breather layer would be the same. So the difference must be that the perforated release material concentrates the bleed through at specific spots in a manner that makes it easy to recover the breather material.

Maybe the release material smooths out the epoxy a bit too, averaging it before it goes through the perforations?  Smoother transitions between wetter and drier spots?

With my method my intention was to avoid the expense and waste of another plastic layer. Breather material I have in excess. Release film I'd have to buy.

[PonoBill]

A release layer is standard practice for a number of reasons, one of many is to reuse breather. If you do a particularly wet layup, it can also save your bag. According to the video dude at Easy Composites, it prevents uneven bag pressure that happens when the breather gets too squashed.  I don't quite undertand that, but I take it as gospel--those folks have never steered me wrong.

[PonoBill]

Then again Mark Raahorst told me he uses Costo paper towels as breather. I think he protects his bag with cheap painter's plastic tarps--the super thin kind that will lay flat or at least be so thin the wrinkles won't turn into lines on your surface.

[blackeye]

I don't quite understand that, but I take it as gospel.

Heh heh. Gospel, dogma, apocrypha. That's why I challenge some of this thinking. Some of it seems to be tradition as opposed to purposeful.

If Mark uses that thin layer as a disposable, he could use it as the vacuum bag. I've done that a few times as I found the thicker bag didn't conform to the curves in the particular tooling. He may have his reasons such as pinholes, dimensions available etc.